My mac only has 1 thunderbolt port...could you use one of the thunderbolt ports on the express dock with a mini display port adapter? It'd be cool to use this dock AND have the ability to plug in an external display.

EDIT: Just found the answer (I believe) here. #5 makes it seem like this is possible, anyone with the device want to chime in?

"...now also have 3 USB3.0 ports connected to WD passport 2TB, to HDMI adapter & 2nd NIC that I can use in any VM (VMWare Fusion & ESXi 5.5.) Yep, the bandwidth on the USB 3.0 is 2.4Gb but it's still faster than USB2.0 and I can plug in and bus power all three 2TB drives plus 2 USB2.0. The Dock won't allow you to pull more than 600mhs (?) - plenty for USB powered HDDs, and iPhones, but iPads pull more."

The dock itself has a power adapter for 6A/12V in. This will provide ample power for all bus powered peripherals since Thunderbolt alone may not provide enough power for all connected devices. Like posted above, though, the USB ports should only provide standard power output (5W) which would not be enough to charge an iPad at full speed.

I have one of these and use it for connecting several drives through bus power. It does a good job at providing enough power to drive my 1TB G-Drive - USB3 and and a 500GB G-Drive - Firewire 800, and OWC Envoy SSD. I also have twin Drobo 5D's connected through the Thunderbolt port and a Gig-E connection.

I have all of the ports used except for the headphones and microphone. Haven't had any issues with it or any device connected to it.

Is there a technical reason as to why the USB 3 ports run at half speed?

Click to expand...

I would assume Belkin wanted to build in some overhead rather than having to use hardware/software to throttle speeds as necessary. Thunderbolt is two bi-direction 10Gb/s channels, so if all 3 USB 3.0 ports were running at 5Gb/s that would take 1 full channel and half of the other channel. Add in the gigabit ethernet and FireWire 800 and you're left with less than 1Gb/s for anything daisy-chained through the second TB port, which is not enough for a high-def display (1080p/60Hz is slightly less than 4Gb/s). By restricting the USB ports you can fit everything connected to the dock in 1 channel, leaving the whole other 10Gb/s channel for an HD display or even a fully loaded second Express Dock.

- first of all, if you do not use external SSDs via USB 3, the connection speed is sufficient. I got roughly 130 Mb/s out of the stock MacBook non-retina HDD ( there were several devices connected to both the dock and a Hun that was also connected to the dock, for example my mouse, another HDD etc. )
- you can daisy chain a monitor to the dock. I own a Dell UH2713M which worked quite well. No problems so far, albeit I have to admit that my MacBook had a few issues with thunderbolt
- sadly, I cannot say something about the power of the USB ports since I only used active components ( a hub from Anker and a 3.5" HDD )

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